Ultrasonic joining apparatus

An ultrasonic joining apparatus, comprising:

• a lead wire housing mechanism housing a lead wire that is wound therein, the lead wire being drawable outside the lead wire housing mechanism by drawing a tip end portion of the lead wire;
• a tension adjustment mechanism having a dancer roller which is movable up and down by applying predetermined pressure and performing a tension adjustment process on the lead wire with keeping a contact relationship between the dancer roller and the lead wire in an actual operation state;
• an ultrasonic joining head performing an ultrasonic joining process on the lead wire disposed on a substrate to join the lead wire to the substrate;
• and
• a controller configured to control the ultrasonic joining head, the lead wire housing mechanism, and the tension adjustment mechanism, wherein
• the lead wire housing mechanism can perform delivery driving of sending out the lead wire and rewinding driving of rewinding the lead wire,
• the tension adjustment mechanism can be set to any of a preparatory state and the actual operation state, the preparatory state being a state where the dancer roller is disposed in a position where the tension adjustment process cannot be performed, and the actual operation state being a state where the dancer roller is disposed in a position where the tension adjustment process can be performed,
• the controller controls the lead wire housing mechanism and the tension adjustment mechanism to perform a tension control process on the lead wire,
• the tension control process includes a joining tension control process performed in the ultrasonic joining process, the joining tension control process being performed to keep the dancer roller in a tension adjustment range in an up-down direction that is defined as a range between an upper limit adjustment position and a lower limit adjustment position, the upper limit adjustment position and the lower limit adjustment position being previously set, and
• the controller is further configured to, as the joining tension control process:
• (a) set the tension adjustment mechanism to the actual operation state to locate the dancer roller in the tension adjustment range;
• (b) control the lead wire housing mechanism to perform the rewinding driving so that the dancer roller is located within the tension adjustment range when the dancer roller reaches the lower limit adjustment position;
• and
• (c) control the lead wire housing mechanism to perform the delivery driving so that the dancer roller is located within the tension adjustment range when the dancer roller reaches the upper limit adjustment position.